


into the gravity

by renecdote



Series: in your hands (my heart) [2]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, but they get there in the end, feelings are hard, it's buck's turn to worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29074992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: “When you fell,” Buck says, and his voice is raw, like all the words have been stuck in his throat, screaming, clamouring to get out. “I swear I felt it. This sharp, stabbing pain in my chest. It was like—like I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t—”He cuts himself off; doesn’t—maybe can’t—finish the thought. But Eddie doesn’t need him to.“Yeah,” he says. “I know what’s like.”In which Buck takes care of Eddie.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: in your hands (my heart) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123211
Comments: 49
Kudos: 388





	into the gravity

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think this one needs any warnings but if you think I missed something with the tags let me know.

It’s the kind of call that everyone expects to go well. Or, if not well, at least not horribly. It’s search and rescue, but dispatch reports the unfortunate climber alert and relatively uninjured, just stuck at the bottom of a steep, rocky incline.

“Between a rock and a hard place,” Chimney throws out gleefully. Everyone else groans.

Without GPS coordinates to follow, it takes some time, but they find the climber. They get her in a harness and winched up to the top where the rest of the team are waiting, peering down at them. Everything is going well. The victim is safely at the top and Buck and Eddie are on their way up, Eddie just a few feet lower, following Buck’s lead.

And then—something happens. Maybe it’s faulty equipment, maybe it wasn’t secured properly (he doubts that; Buck checked it), hell, maybe it’s just bad fucking luck—he can’t say for sure, it happens so quickly. One second Eddie is looking up, watching the sky get closer, and the next second, one of the clips on his harness is coming undone and he is dropping a foot, swinging as he scrabbles for purchase, slamming hard against the rock.

“Eddie!”

His name rings out, ragged in the way it is torn from Buck’s lips. Eddie feels the pop, the flash of white-hot pain, as his arm slips out of its socket; then just as quickly, the nauseating grating of bone on bone as the continuing movement of his body pops the joint back into place. He doesn’t scream; he thinks that’s a definite point in his favour because it hurts like hell. The pain is lessened by the joint realigning, but it’s still there, a throbbing ache instead of molten agony pulsing through his arm and down his back.

“Fuck,” Eddie gasps. There are frantic voices overhead, muffled by the much closer, much more frantic words tumbling from Buck’s lips. Eddie has to catch his breath before he can reassure them. “I’m okay. Shit—” hissed, before he raises his voice again, “I’m okay!”

Buck is all over him as soon as they get him back to the top, pulling at Eddie’s harness, relaying an agitated, stumbling version of events to the others, tripping over his words as he talks. Hen is there, calm and professional, easing him away so she can take a look.

“Are you hurt?” she asks Eddie directly.

And Eddie hates it as much as he appreciates it because it means he can’t lie, can’t just brush it off.

“My shoulder,” he admits. “I think I hurt my shoulder.”

The pain is sharp when Hen’s fingers poke and prod, manipulating the joint. She and Chimney exchange looks and Chimney shrugs and just as Eddie opens his mouth to ask what that’s all about, Hen says, “Doesn’t seem like anything is broken, but we should get you to the hospital to get checked out just in case.”

Eddie sighs. Great.

******

He keeps seeing Buck’s face; pale, eyes wide, terror etched in where laugh lines should be. He still looks a little shell-shocked now, leg bouncing as he sits in the waiting room chair. His attention is fixed on his phone, so it takes a few seconds for him to notice that Eddie is there. When he does, he stands quickly, takes a step forward then aborts the movement, like he can’t figure out how worried he is allowed to be. His eyes are drawn, predictability, to the sling Eddie’s left arm is in.

“Hey.” Eddie smiles, aiming for reassuring but suspecting it just looks tired. “You’re my ride out of here?”

It jolts Buck back into motion.

“Yeah. The others had to go. Bobby was going to call your Abuela but I know she doesn’t like to drive.”

There are other options. Pepa. Carla, maybe. One of his cousins. But Buck stayed; probably argued for the right to do so. Eddie is pretty sure that the only thing that stopped him from arguing his way into the ER at Eddie’s side was the fact that the rest of the team was there.

“Uber?” he asks, angling toward the exit.

Buck shakes his head, hand ghosting over Eddie’s back to guide him toward the carpark. “Bobby left the battalion truck. We’ll have to go back to the station and pick up one of our cars.”

And Eddie knows that it’s just because he’s injured, that Buck is driving him home because he can’t drive himself, but the idea of going home with Buck, of having _your car or mine?_ conversations every day—

He doesn’t know how to describe the feeling that coils tight in his chest. Want, maybe. So powerful he’d even call it need.

(“Come on,” he remembers Buck saying the day of the earthquake, only a handful of days into knowing each other, when Eddie’s car was blocked in at the back of the station car park and he was at the end of his last frayed nerve, desperate to see his son, desperate to make sure Christopher was as okay as the teacher waiting with him said he was. “It’s going to take ages to get your car out, let’s just take mine.”

And it was easy then, to give in, to follow Buck’s lead. To sit in the passenger seat staring anxiously out the window while Buck talked about everything and nothing in the driver’s seat.

It’s always easy, following Buck.)

They’re pulling out of the hospital car park before Buck asks, “So what did the doctor say?”

“Subluxation.” The word rolls clumsily off Eddie’s tongue. “She said to treat it like a dislocated shoulder; sling for a couple weeks, avoid moving it if I can. The x-ray didn’t show any tears so it shouldn’t need surgery.”

The discharge papers and all the instructions are folded into his pocket with the bottle of hydrocodone he was prescribed, three days worth of tablets rattling around.

Buck nods, fingers tapping anxiously against the steering wheel.

“I’m okay, Buck,” Eddie tells him.

Buck looks at him under the orange street lights when they stop at a red light. It’s dark now; he was at the hospital for hours.

“Yeah,” Buck says finally. “Yeah, I know.”

And maybe he does know, but it sounds like he’s having a hard time believing it.

******

Eddie has always hated medical leave. He knows it is necessary, knows that healing, getting himself back to 100%, is important—especially as a firefighter, with a team relying on him—but having all that time on his hands leaves his skin itching. He sleeps restlessly, uncomfortable and hurting but reluctant to take anything stronger than the Tylenol he took before bed. He dreams of gunshots and sand and wakes clutching his shoulder, caught for a moment in the sticky web of the past.

It’s still the middle of the night.

Eddie doesn’t go back to sleep.

He shuffles through breakfast in the morning, getting Christopher fed and dressed and his schoolbag packed with stilted, one-handed movements. Carla arrives to take Chris to school and Eddie slumps down on the couch, already unsure of what to do with himself in the empty house.

He thinks about texting Buck, but Buck is still working. Or maybe home by now? If he is, he’ll be sleeping off the fatigue of a twenty-four hour shift. Either way, Eddie shouldn’t disturb him.

He tries to do the laundry spilling out of the basket; manages to toss the clothes in the machine with only a little difficulty, but finds that getting them out is much harder. The movement pulls at his shoulder, sends sparks of pain through his chest and down his arm. He takes more Tylenol, but it doesn’t help. He picks up the bottle of pills from the hospital instead, then immediately puts them back down. They sit on the narrow white shelf, mocking him, until Eddie sighs and closes the cabinet. He goes to the freezer and grabs out an ice pack instead.

Carla and Christopher blow through the house in the afternoon, stopping long enough to pack a bag for a sleepover and hug Eddie goodbye. He manages to hide the grimace of pain from his son but not from Carla. She frowns, pensive as she takes him in, and Eddie tries to stand straighter, to will away the scrutiny.

“Do you need anything?” she asks.

Eddie shakes his head. “I’m good.”

Carla’s arched eyebrows show how much she doubts that, but Christopher is there, smiling up at them, so she doesn’t say anything. Eddie tousles Chris’s hair, then pulls him in for another one-armed hug. It’s harder to let go the second time.

“Have fun, okay?” he makes himself say. “Don’t stay up too late.”

Christopher’s voice is bright, excited, when he says, “You have fun too, Dad.”

Then the house is empty again. Eddie trades his now-melted ice pack for a fresh one out of the freezer and sinks down onto the couch. There is nothing good on TV; he watches it anyway. An advertisement for car insurance slides seamlessly into one for laundry detergent and Eddie groans. Fuck, he should have asked Carla for help with the laundry.

******

He wakes up when the front door opens. His shoulder is stiff, aching, and he struggles upright on the couch, trying to orient himself. He doesn’t remember falling asleep. He definitely doesn’t remember expecting anyone to come over and he’s reaching for a weapon that isn’t there before the intruder’s, “hey, sorry, I let myself in,” catches up with him.

It’s Buck. Eddie relaxes, sinking back against the couch cushions. It’s just Buck.

“Hey.” He scrubs a hand over his face, trying to wake himself up a little more, trying to hide the wince as he moves. The ice pack, melted, slips down behind his back, water soaking through his shirt. “What are you doing here?”

Buck holds up the bag in his hand. Eddie can see containers of food through the plastic; proper containers, Tupperware, not the flimsy plastic of takeaway restaurants everywhere.

“You said I owed you dinner.”

It takes a moment for the meaning to sink in, for Eddie to place the words and when he said them. That was almost a month ago now.

“Bobby’s food?” he asks eagerly. When he took the job with LAFD, he never thought a downside of not working would be missing out on his captain’s cooking.

Buck shakes his head. Is he blushing? It’s hard to tell, with the lighting and the space between them. “Mine. Um. It’s probably not as good.”

 _Not as good_ is hardly a fair standard when the comparison is Bobby’s food.

“I’m sure it will be edible,” Eddie says, giving him a teasing grin.

Buck rolls his eyes, but it’s a stilted, performative kind of action, his shoulders tense. “Where’s Chris?” he asks, looking around.

“He’s at a sleepover.” Eddie shrugs, like it doesn’t bother him. Like he didn’t spend hours today agonising over it, visualising the look on his son’s face if he said _I know this has been planned for weeks but I don’t want to let you out of my sight tonight even though I know you’ll be fine_. Christopher would have been understanding, he knows, and in the end that is what made Eddie bite the words back and hug his son goodbye.

Besides, he doesn’t like Christopher seeing him hurt. The kid has enough to worry about without adding his dad to the mix.

Buck looks disappointed that he won’t get to see Christopher. It’s just another reason to love him, knowing how much he loves Eddie’s kid.

“I made enough for three,” he says, turning to the coffee table and busying himself taking containers out of the bag. “So I guess you’ll have leftovers for lunch tomorrow.”

Eddie is—starving. It surprises him, somehow. He hasn’t thought about food all day, but now that it has been placed in front of him, he devours it. It’s good. Really good. Nothing fancy, noodles and crunchy stir-fried vegetables and beef, complimented by some kind of sauce with just enough chilli to make Eddie’s mouth burn pleasantly. It’s food that is easy to eat one-handed. The thoughtfulness of that, more than the meal itself, is what makes Eddie’s heart squeeze in his chest.

“This is so good,” he says, twirling his fork around more noodles and shoving them in his mouth quickly before they can slide back off the fork with his clumsy one-handed movements.

Buck has a plate of his own, but he’s only picking at it, pushing the stir-fry around more than eating it. It’s possible that he’s just not hungry, that he ate earlier, but Eddie knows him better than that. He just… doesn’t know what to do about it. He opens his mouth to say something—not even sure what—but Buck beats him to it.

“I was doing some reading the other night,” he says. (Translation: not sleeping.) “Did you know that chillies don’t actually burn your mouth? The capsaicin in them just tricks your brain into feeling like it’s burning. It doesn’t work on birds though, so one theory is that it’s a defence mechanism developed by the plant so that it would be eaten by birds, which spread the seeds and allow them to germinate, but not mammals who destroy the seeds and don’t help the plant grow again.”

Eddie takes another bite, savouring the spiciness of it. “Didn’t really work out then, did it?”

Buck laughs, like it has been startled out of him. “No, I guess it didn’t.”

He spears a piece of carrot and eats it, then goes back for a couple of noodles. Eddie hides his satisfaction behind another mouthful of food. There is a movie playing on the TV, something they are both pretending to watch, and Eddie thinks it would be easy to relax into the moment, into the good food and better company, if he wasn’t trying to hide how stiffly he is holding himself. He thinks Buck hasn’t noticed, or at least that he’s not going to push the matter, until he stands and reaches for Eddie’s empty plate.

“I can do it,” Eddie tries to protest, but Buck just waves him off.

“It’s two plates, Eds, I think I can handle it.”

He comes back with the bottle of hydrocodone and a glass of water. And he’s frowning, which means he has figured out that the bottle is just as full as it was when Eddie brought it home.

“They don’t hand these out just for fun, you know. And they’re not going to help sitting in the bottle—you have to actually take them.”

Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t like it.”

Buck’s hand remains steady, holding the bottle out. “You’re in pain,” he says, stubbornly insistent. “Take it.” And when that doesn’t work, he softens his voice, sits down beside Eddie, asks, “Do you trust me?”

What kind of stupid question is that? “Of course I trust you, Buck.”

The stupid question is in fact a trap.

“Then take your meds.” Buck’s eyes are big and blue and earnest. “I’m right here, Eds, nothing is going to happen if you let your guard down. I promise.”

Eddie holds out for several more long seconds, shoulder throbbing. Then he lets out a breath snd shakes out one pill.

Buck smiles and happily passes him the glass of water.

It doesn’t long before Eddie is warm and sleepy, pleasantly full and pain free, more comfortable than he has been all day. He slumps a little lower, sinking into the gravity of Buck at his side; close, but not quite touching. Buck is warm and Eddie isn’t really cold but he finds himself drawn to it anyway.

“I didn’t really mean it, you know,” he finds himself saying. “When I said you owed me dinner.”

“I know.”

If he knew, and he came over with dinner anyway, used it as an excuse…

Eddie frowns, his mind moving too slow. “You were worried?”

Buck frowns back at him, like it’s a stupid question. And yeah, Eddie supposes it is.

“Of course I was worried about you.”

“I’m okay,” Eddie says, as sincere as he can make it. He doesn’t like it when Buck worries about him.

No, that’s not quite right. He doesn’t like being the reason that Buck is worried.

Buck isn’t looking at him anymore. His tone is—not sharp, but prickly, like he’s annoyed at himself, when he says, “I know that.”

But he was worried anyway. Eddie bumps their shoulders together, glad that they’re sitting this way, Buck on his good side, so that it’s something he can do. Except bump isn’t really the right word because he leans into Buck and then just… doesn’t move away.

Buck doesn’t move either.

Eddie closes his eyes, breathing in the warmth of his best friend, the smell of his deodorant and the fainter trace of that vanilla laundry detergent he uses. His brain to mouth filter is maybe just a little bit broken from those drugs he took because he opens his mouth to say thank you and what comes out instead is, “I love you.”

Buck’s voice is quiet, the words somewhere above Eddie’s head when he replies, “Love you too, Eds.”

Eddie is going to say more. He’s going say _I worry about you too_ and _I keep thinking about your face yesterday and I hate that I made you look like that_. Other things too, about the way his heart stopped when he walked into Buck’s apartment several weeks ago and found him with all that blood. _Is that what happened to you when I fell?_ he wants to ask. _Is that what happens every time I get hurt? Because it happens to me every time you get hurt._

It feels safe, in this moment, to say all those things. To let everything that has been building between them spill over. Eddie doesn’t like being vulnerable. It’s easier to be the one comforting, to look after, to show how much he cares with those kinds of actions. But it’s Buck. It’s always Buck. So it would be okay, Eddie thinks, to give in, to let himself be vulnerable just this once.

It’s a thought that is still running through his mind when he falls asleep.

******

He wakes with his head on Buck’s shoulder. Buck is leaning back in the corner of the couch and Eddie is practically on top of him. His first, sleep-muddled thought, is: _this is nice_. The second, when he shifts, chasing comfort, is: _ow._ He must make some kind of sound, or maybe it’s just the movement that makes Buck stir, voice little more than a sleepy hum when he says, “Eds? You okay?”

Eddie doesn’t say anything. If he doesn’t answer, he doesn’t have to say no.

Buck sits up a little more. “Eddie?”

Dammit. Eddie grits his teeth. “I’m fine,” he tries to say. And when the doubtful press of Buck’s concern doesn’t let up, he sighs and makes himself add, “Just a bit sore, that’s all. My neck obviously didn’t think I was as comfortable as my brain did.”

A part of him is hoping Buck will latch onto that last bit, but of course he doesn’t.

“Sorry,” Buck says immediately. “You fell asleep on me and I didn’t want to wake you up. I should have made you go to bed.”

He sounds guilty. Too guilty for something that is entirely Eddie’s fault. He should have known better than to fall asleep on the couch, especially after doing it once and waking up stiff and sore.

“It’s okay.” He bites his lip, words held back behind his teeth, building and clamouring until Buck looks at him, so damn guilty, and Eddie lets all the things he doesn’t know how to say spill out in four simple words: “I could have moved.”

_I didn’t want to. I was comfortable. I think I slept better than I have all week._

Maybe Buck hears all of that, or some of it, because guilt slips away with the turn of his head, suddenly bashful. When he looks back at Eddie, it’s through lowered lashes. Eddie feels caught in that gaze; seen. Buck really has the pinkest lips, he thinks, it would be so easy to lean forward and—

He shakes his head, clearing the fog.

“It’s late,” Buck says, eyes sliding toward the door. “I should go.”

Eddie reaches out, catches Buck’s t-shirt between his fingers. “Stay.”

 _Please_ , he thinks. _Don’t make me say please._

Buck bites his lip, hesitating. Eddie doesn’t say _if you want to leave, I won’t stop you_. He wouldn’t, but he doesn’t think Buck wants to leave. Sometimes, he has learnt, it is better not to give Buck options. He’s much too good at self-sabotage.

“Okay,” Buck says, and it doesn’t feel like giving in so much as letting go of all the things holding him back. Eddie’s fingers are still tangled in the cotton of his shirt; he has to pull them away, but he keeps holding them when he could just let go, lifting Eddie’s arm with him when he stands. “But it’s still late. And I’m not letting you sleep out here.”

Eddie would be lying if he said he’d never imagined leading Buck to his bedroom. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t imagined the reverse as well. But�—not like this. They’re standing by the bed and Eddie feels—lost. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do here. He doesn’t know what Buck _wants_.

So he stops, pushes that aside, and thinks: what does _he_ need? Right now, right this second, other than to hold onto Buck and never let go: what does he need?

“I should shower.”

Buck nods. “Okay. Um. Do you need— I mean I can—” He stumbles over the words, not quite meeting Eddie’s eyes. He gestures, a little awkwardly, to the sling.

Eddie doesn’t really need help, taking it off is the easy bit, but—

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, maybe you could—”

It hurts less, when Buck does it. And Eddie knows that’s just because he isn’t moving himself, and the painkillers from earlier are probably still working, but—it hurts less, with Buck. That feels important. So when the sling comes off and Buck starts working on the buttons of his shirt, Eddie doesn’t stop him. He’s not even sure that he breathes. If time stopped right now, and he had to be stuck in this moment forever, he doesn’t think he’d complain.

Buck sucks in a breath, air hissing through his teeth, when he peels away the shirt and sees the bruising on Eddie’s shoulder. His fingers are light, almost reverent in the way they ghost over the skin. It makes Eddie shiver.

“Buck,” he starts—and then stops, not sure where he was going with it.

Buck has never been able to hide his expressions. The naked pain when he meets Eddie’s eyes makes Eddie’s chest ache. He reaches out, ignoring the spark of pain as he grazes knuckles over Buck’s jaw, up his cheek, stretching his fingers out so he can trace Buck’s birthmark with his fingertips. Buck’s lips part—the beginning of a question, maybe, but he doesn’t say anything, he just stands frozen, looking back at Eddie. Eddie watches the bob of his throat, the shudder of his breath. He can feel it, even, ghosting across his forearm.

When Buck finally speaks, his voice is almost hoarse. “You’re not supposed to be moving your arm.”

His hand wraps around Eddie’s wrist, stilling his movements, but not pushing him away.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Eddie tells him. It doesn’t hurt much, anyway. “And the doctor said I should do some stretches to help it heal. She gave me a pamphlet.”

“I don’t think this is in the pamphlet.”

Eddie can barely remember what is in the pamphlet. He’s definitely not going to mention that he’s not supposed to be doing the stretches the first few days. Buck probably knows that anyway. He lets go of Eddie’s wrist and Eddie lets his hand fall back to his lap, smoothing a wince before it can fully form.

 _I don’t know how to ask you to kiss me_ , he thinks. But he doesn’t know how to say that either. He doesn’t know how to reach out and take; doesn’t know if that’s something he’s allowed to do. Loving Buck may not be a realisation, but he’s sure as hell hoping for one about how to act on it. It’s driving him a little crazy. He’s sure that Buck wants it to; Eddie isn’t totally oblivious, and Buck isn’t exactly subtle. But Buck won’t do anything about it and Eddie is stumbling blind, waiting for a lifeline that he isn’t sure is coming.

He steps away; hates the distance even as he puts it between them. What felt easy several hours ago feels impossibly hard now.

“I’m going to shower,” he says, and when he grabs clean underwear and a pair of sweatpants and leaves—escapes—Buck doesn’t stop him.

******

The shower is hot, almost scalding, and maybe Eddie is punishing himself standing under it, feeling the sting of water against his skin. Punishing himself for what, he doesn’t know. Allowing them to get this far? Not pushing them far enough? Sometimes it feels like for every inch he pushes, Buck pulls two inches away. He never goes far enough for Eddie to read it as rejection, though, always stays circling, caught in the orbit of whatever the hell it is they are doing. It’s not as simple as telling Buck how he feels because Buck already knows how he feels, he must, so—what now?

He still hasn’t figured it out by the time he gets out of the shower. It’s a struggle to get dressed one-handed, but Eddie grits his teeth and doesn’t call out for help. He doesn’t need it; he can manage. He got himself dressed every day with bullet wounds in his shoulder and wrist, he can handle one not-even-fully-dislocated shoulder. And it’s only pants; experience has taught him that those are the easy bit. He’s glad it’s warm enough that he doesn’t have to bother with a shirt.

Part of him is surprised that Buck is still there when he leaves the bathroom. Not in the house—he wouldn’t just leave, not like that—but in Eddie’s bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at his phone. He looks up when Eddie comes in, eyes flickering over him, the assessment probably not even conscious. That’s what they do; they look out for each other, keep tabs on each other, check-in if one of them isn’t okay. Buck has always been better at it, always so attuned to Eddie’s thoughts and feelings and so desperately willing to help. Eddie… he’s still figuring it out.

He’s still figuring a lot of things out.

Buck stands, slipping his phone into his pocket, something almost nervous in the movement. He reaches for the sling, abandoned on the bed earlier, and holds it out, waiting for Eddie’s nod before he steps closer. They don’t speak this time. Buck’s focus is on the sling, making sure Eddie’s arm is positioned right, getting the strap around his neck and clipped together, running his fingers underneath the coarse material to straighten it out, make sure it isn’t cutting into Eddie’s skin. Eddie opens his mouth half a dozen times but doesn’t know what to say.

It takes him by surprise when Buck suddenly asks, “Do you know why we feel pain?”

Eddie frowns, uneasy about where this is going. He wishes, maybe a little ridiculously, that he was wearing a shirt. “Sure,” he says. “It’s to tell us when something is wrong.”

“That’s part of it,” Buck acknowledges. “But more specifically, it’s to protect us. To tell us that something is harmful so we stop doing it, or so we don’t do it again.”

“Are you trying to tell me not to get myself beaten up by rocks again? Because trust me, I wasn’t planning to.”

“When you fell,” Buck says, and his voice is raw, like all the words have been stuck in his throat, screaming, clamouring to get out. “I swear I felt it. This sharp, stabbing pain in my chest. It was like—like I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t—”

He cuts himself off; doesn’t—maybe can’t—finish the thought. But Eddie doesn’t need him to.

“Yeah,” he says. “I know what’s like.”

He thinks of the moment he realised Christopher was in the tsunami. The moment that bomb blew up and Buck was in its path instead of by his side. The moment he saw Shannon lying on that crosswalk. And that pain—he knows what that is. It’s feeling like you haven’t just lost someone, you’ve lost a part of yourself.

Eddie realises suddenly how tired Buck looks, how dark the shadows under his eyes are. Eddie has told him that he’s fine, Buck has seen that he’s fine, but he still looks haunted.

It occurs to him, suddenly, that he’s been so busy trying to tell Buck that he’s okay, but maybe what Buck really needs to hear is— “It’s not your fault.”

Of course it isn’t. Eddie hadn’t even thought that for a second. But Buck—

Haunted doesn’t feel quite right for the expression on Buck’s face. He looks devastated, wrecked, like he’s drowning and Eddie just offered him a hand but he doesn’t think he deserves to take it.

“I checked your harness,” he says, and it’s anguished, thick with the threat of tears. “I checked it, Eddie, and I didn’t—I should have noticed—”

Eddie steps closer, puts a hand on his shoulder. With only inches between them, it forces Buck to look at him, to see the sincerity on his face as well as hear it in his voice.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Eddie repeats. “It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone.”

“But it didn’t.”

Buck’s face shutters as soon as he says the words, like he didn’t mean to let them out. Like he’s not allowed to feel that way, to feel like his whole world almost crumbled underneath him because it was _Eddie_ who fell instead of anyone else.

Or maybe that’s not what he means at all. Maybe he’s just caught in the viscous guilt of feeling like it was his fault because he was the one who checked the harness. Maybe what he’s hearing is _anyone could have made that mistake_ instead of _anyone could have had the misfortune to put on a harness that probably shouldn’t have been on the truck in the first place_.

“Buck—”

“I’m sorry,” Buck says again. “I know it’s stupid. I know—I know you’re okay. I _know_ that.” He closes his eyes, breathing deeply, and the next words are little more than a broken whisper. “I just keeping seeing you fall, Eddie, and—it _terrifies_ me. Losing you. And to have it be my fault—”

“It wasn’t.”

Eddie could say it until he’s blue in the face—he will, if he has to. He just doesn’t know how to make Buck believe it. His hand slides up, holding the back of Buck’s neck. He can feel the jump of his pulse, the heat of his skin, the short, soft strands of hair at the back of his head. It would be easy to get distracted like this, to follow the movement through, tug Buck close enough for their lips to meet. But Eddie doesn’t; what he has to say is more important.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, okay? Look at me, Buck.” And Buck does, eyes wide and so damn vulnerable Eddie feels it like a physical ache in his stomach. He repeats it, steady and warm and full of everything he feels. “I’m right here.”

They both are. And Buck is right—not about the accident being his fault, but about how easy it would be to lose each other. Their jobs are dangerous. Hell, not just their jobs. It’s been less than a month since Buck shaved ten years off Eddie’s life with something as ordinary as a nosebleed. What’s to say something like that won’t happen again? What if it’s something worse? A bad cut or a fall or a car accident while walking down the street.

Because life is full of little ironies, how much that scares him is what makes Eddie brave.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks.

It’s like all Buck has been waiting for is permission. He surges forward, desperate in the way his lips crash into Eddie’s, kissing like his life depends on it. Eddie has imagined this moment. He has imagined the way Buck’s lips would feel, the scrape of stubble against stubble, Buck’s fingers in his hair, down his back, searching for every little way to get closer while Eddie does the same.

He never imagined the way his shoulder would throb at being jostled. Or the way an involuntary gasp of pain would make Buck rear back like he’s been slapped.

“Sorry, shit, sorry, I didn’t—”

Eddie grabs Buck’s shirt, stopping him from going too far, and kisses him again, sucking on his bottom lip, revelling in the way Buck opens up to him, letting himself be guided wherever Eddie leads. “Stop apologising,” he says. “It’s fine. I’m fine. I want—”

_This. You. Everything._

God, Eddie _wants_.

Buck’s hands find his hips, holding him steady. Eddie leans into it, leans into him, and when they kiss again, it’s softer, gentler, like they have all the time in the world to get it right.

“What do you want, Eddie?” Buck asks, little more than a whisper, kiss-drunk and blurry round the edges.

“I want you to stay,” Eddie tells him. He means now and always and forever, but it’s all tangled together, stuck on a loop in his head— _stay stay stay stay_.

Buck’s eyes search his face. Eddie isn’t sure what it is he’s looking for, but he must find it because he nods, face relaxing into a smile.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay, I’ll stay.”

And maybe Eddie is just projecting, but when Buck says it, it sounds like _now and always and forever_ as well.

******

He wakes up alone. For one sleep-fuzzy moment, Eddie isn’t sure why that’s surprising. He’s used to waking up alone these days; the only times he doesn’t are if Christopher is sick or has a nightmare and ends up in his bed. But Christopher isn’t here, so why is he—

And then he remembers.

“Buck?” Eddie calls.

He sits up, pushing away the covers. The house is silent. It’s early, the sun barely up, can’t be any later than six-thirty. Eddie frowns. Buck snuck out? Only traces of him have been left behind in the bottle of painkillers and the glass of water that weren’t sitting on the nightstand the night before. Hurt bubbles in Eddie’s chest, a pain more bitter than his injured shoulder, and it’s only when he’s reaching for his phone that he notices the pieces of paper that has been folded and slipped underneath it.

 _Had to run home before work_ , Buck has written, _I didn’t want to wake you._ Then, more scribbly, like it was added a few minutes later as a last minute afterthought: _Take your pills._

The hurt fizzles out, fondness spreading warm through his body instead.

Eddie grabs his phone, fumbling one-handed to type out a message. **What time do you finish work? Can you come over tonight?**

They need to talk, they need to figure this out with clearer heads than they had last night. But mostly Eddie just wants to see him.

Buck must have left long enough ago that he’s already at his apartment because the reply is almost instantaneous. **You miss me already?**

Eddie only hesitates for a second before sending back one word: **Always**.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are love 💛 You can also find me on tumblr [here](https://renecdote.tumblr.com/).
> 
> This one fought me every step of the way so I'm sorry if it doesn't live up to expectations after the amazing response to the first fic. Part three is going to take a little longer because my life is going to be a bit chaotic for the next few weeks, but I'll get it done as quickly as I can. And don't worry, there will be lots more Christopher to make up for his absence in the firs two parts 😊


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